When I read "remembered chiefly for his monumental, jut-jawed portrayals of Moses, Ben-Hur and Michelangelo," I wondered, by whom? I'm pretty old but I've never seen those movies. I was alive when they came out, but too young to go to movies like that, and they weren't the kind of movies I was ever interested in over the decades I've spent catching up on old movies. So I don't believe Charlton Heston is remembered chiefly for his monumental, jut-jawed portrayals of Moses, Ben-Hur and Michelangelo. I think most people younger than 60 remember him chiefly for "Planet of the Apes."

Ask the man on the street to imitate Charlton Heston and I bet he'd say "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!"

Or maybe:

Ah, we loved Science Fiction Charlton Heston!

It was Charlton Heston that turned me against Michael Moore. Remember this from "Bowling for Columbine" — taking advantage of the old man's deteriorating mind?

Horrible. Moore must have felt so self-righteous about his anti-gun agenda that he couldn't see why it was indecent to use that footage. [ADDED: Actually, I don't think that clip is "horrible" or "indecent." When I posted this, I was remembering it and the discussion around it at the time. After watching it just now, I think, given Heston's NRA activities, it was appropriate to interview him and push him, and Moore addressed him with an appropriate level of respect.][AND: I think the unfairness to Moore that I'm remember occurs outside of this clip, when Moore refuses to leave politely after Heston ends the interview.]

The obituary outlines Heston's political career. He started out as a Democrat, and though he, like Ronald Reagan, served as president of the Screen Actors Guild, he never wanted to run for office.

He became a Republican after Democrats in the Senate blocked the confirmation of Judge Robert Bork, a conservative, to the Supreme Court in 1987. Mr. Heston had supported the nomination and was critical of the Reagan White House for misreading the depth of the liberal opposition....

In December of that year, as the keynote speaker at the 20th anniversary gala of the Free Congress Foundation, Mr. Heston described “a cultural war” raging across America, “storming our values, assaulting our freedoms, killing our self-confidence in who we are and what we believe.”

The next year, at 73, he was elected president of the N.R.A. In his speech at the association’s convention before his election, he trained his oratorical artillery on President Bill Clinton’s White House: “Mr. Clinton, sir, America didn’t trust you with our health care system. America didn’t trust you with gays in the military. America doesn’t trust you with our 21-year-old daughters, and we sure, Lord, don’t trust you with our guns.”

71 comments:

I guess you didn't make a point of watching the annual Easter TV re-runs of The Ten Commandments; too pedestrian and gauche, I suppose.

I think my favorite of his 70's movies is The Omega Man. That movie is almost a satire on Chuck's later life; love of guns, conservative values, unable to fit into modern culture.

He served his country in the Army Air Corps during WWII, stayed married to the same woman for 64 years, and marched with Martin Luther King when it was dangerous to do so. Along the way he played some iconic film roles.

I've dreaded this day ever since he announced he had Alzheimer's. My condolences to Mrs. Heston and the rest of the family.

To his detractors, Heston could be an inflexible, monolithic presence, weighed down by his own mantle of heroism and pious sense of virtue. Others took a more charitable view. Assessing the actor's cultural impact, the critic Pauline Kael hailed him as "a god-like hero, built for strength. He is an archetype of what makes Americans win. He represents American power - and he has the profile of an eagle."

Echoing Bob, (and being younger than 60), I remember Heston every year around Easter or so in The Ten Commandments.

And there was a disturbing point when Jesus of Nazareth appeared on the scene (and on at the same time) in NYC in the late 1970's and I think my parents thought we were not getting enough Jesus and made us watch that instead.

But when we did watch The Ten Commandments, I would sit quietly rooting for Yul Bryner, who struck me as a real man, and less pompous given his actual job (as Pharaoh) in comparison with Heston's messianic choseness.

We always watched Ben Hur, and by the time Planet of the Apes rolled around I was shocked to find Heston in there. My dad kind of sprung one of the movies on me, though I do remember being uncomfortable during scenes of one scantily clad woman and wondering if I should be looking away or not (my parents not keen on us seeing anything too robustly interesting).

He was a great one, Heston. From oddities like Soylent Green to western classics like The Big Country, which also starred Jean Simmons,Gregory Peck, Burl Ives and Chuck Connors.

I'm old enough to have watched the Ten Commandments when it came out in a theater in St. Paul, MN. One thing about the evening that I most remember, was when we were walking to the theatre, we passed by a bar called Alary's. A man was going into the bar, and I looked inside and saw a woman with what could be called a g-string on with tassels on both of her breasts, and she had those tassels rotating in a clockwise direction, very fast. I thought the movie was pretty good too. I must have been about 10 years old.

The idea that you have to watch something because it's on tv... I don't get it. Lots of stuff is on tv. No one watches it all. There are channels. You're always picking. My consistent failure to watch that pretty clearly says I don't want to watch it. I didn't say I lacked the opportunity. I'm not interested.

I'm 40, and I definitely remember Heston in Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments and The Planet of the Apes. I'd say that because of all the reruns, The Ten Commandments is probably his most well-known role. All three are excellent movies, though. They were standard fare for us growing up. The slaver scenes in Hur stand out - and not just for Heston: "Row well and live"

My daughter, 13, has seen the first two, but I don't think she's seen Apes.

I was surprised to hear he had passed - honestly because I thought he had already left us. I must have been remembering his Alzheimer's announcement.

Ann Althouse: The idea that you have to watch something because it's on tv... I don't get it. Lots of stuff is on tv. No one watches it all. There are channels. You're always picking.

True these days, not so true when you or I were growing up, and there were only three channels on the TV, unless you lived close enough to a town to get the PBS broadcast. You were probably already in college when I and other children watched The Ten Commandments annually at Easter; it was one of the times we were allowed to stay up late before school the next day. Huge nostalgia for us younger Boomers.

I was in junior high (now called middle school) and living in Fort Lauderdale when it came out. There weren't any movie theaters in Fort Lauderdale big enough for such a spectacle so my Latin teacher arranged a trip for her students to see it in Miami. For us it was a very big deal indeed.

I didn't like Moses, or Ben Hur, of POTA. After a while I stopped seeing Heston movies because it occurred to me I didn't like them -- not sure if it was his acting or just the type of movie he was interested in being in.

I find it interesting that Heston was a liberal democrat in the 60s, who lead the Hollywood contingent in the March on Washing, but by 1980s he was considered an arch-reactionary because he believed in the 2nd Amendment and attacked the toxic filth in some rap songs.

Heston announced that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease in 2002. Surely, he had symptoms before then.

The Moore movie was released in 2002.

If Moore had reason to know at the time of the interview that Heston was suffering from the disease, interviewing him would have been a cruel thing to do.

Heston had substantial involvement in the civil rights movement in the early 1960s. He was a brave man, many of whose best known movies reflect his belief in the dignity and worth of all people, and especially their right not be turned into wafers and eaten.

Your list is right on the money RC especailly The War Lord and Will Penny. But I would include Major Dundee as one of my favorites as well as The Bucaneer where he played Andrew Jackson and Yule Brenner played Jean Lafite (with hair no less).

So I don't believe Charlton Heston is remembered chiefly for his monumental, jut-jawed portrayals of Moses, Ben-Hur and Michelangelo. I think most people younger than 60 remember him chiefly for "Planet of the Apes."

Just because you don't remember things a certain way doesn't make that the case for other people. I'm a long way from 60 (37, to be precise), and I definitely remember Heston as Moses and Ben-Hur (Michelangelo, not so much) to a greater degree than Planet of the Apes. The Ten Commandments around Eastertime were part of the standard television fare of any American household from the late 60s through the 80s, particularly those with any pretensions to mainstream religion, even though it isn't exactly the most Biblically accurate of films (it took me awhile to realize that Dathan was actually not a major figure in Exodus). Hell, I remember Heston coming on the Arsenio Hall show and being asked by Hall to do the "live by the law, die by the law" monologue, to the audience's delight.

As much as I love Planet of the Apes, it's the other films that made him an icon. I'd imagine that's the case for most people. Also, remember that a lot of those older films were played all the time on cable movie channels like TBS in the 70s and 80s, before the explosion of cable channels that we now have, so old films like the Ten Commandments or Spartacus (for me, Kirk Douglas will always be Spartacus) had a cultural currency to them that they didn't have in the 60s.

1) The recent Wil Smith movie I am Legend was a remake of Heston's "Omega Man". I still like Omega Man better.

2) The Agony and the Ecstacy is actually a pretty good film by the standards of the time it was made. The interplay between Heston and Rex Harrison is very good.

3) There are certain movies that are simply part of our common American culture, and everyone should see them at least once. These would include films such as Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz and It's a Wonderful Life. The Ten Commandments is another one of those movies. You ought to see it at least once Ann, it really has had an impact on American culture.

There is no finer example of the power and majesty of the Lord than seeing what happens to Edward J. Robinson who is leading the worship of Golden Calf while Moses is on the mount and utters the immortal phrase:

"Waddaya think of your Moses now, see?"

Co-staring John Carradine who was in between fathering mediocre actors and Vincent Price in a rare non vampire role. And of chose the immortal Yvonne De Carlo as Sephora before her interest in make up led to her role as Lily Munster and her career in business in the opening of the cosmetic chain that bears her characters name.

I'm younger than 60 (barely)and I remember Charlton Heston from Ben Hur. I read the book first at the age of 9 Ben-Hur A Tale of The Christ by Lew Wallace 1880. . I remember him from his portrayal of the last man on earth in Omega Man. Also a book that I read before seeing the movie I am Legend, Richard Matheson 1954

I read everything I can get my hands on.

Looking at RCs list. I saw almost all of those movies. Heston wasn't just a man's actor, he was also a figure (at least in the movies and it seems in real life as well) that most women would love to have in their lives. Although modern feminism has dissed and discarded these values. Manly, principled, protective, physically strong, tender, a strong sense of justice, self reliant.... did I mention sexy and handsome? What a fabulous voice.

He represents a type of man and a generation of men that are now few and far between. We will miss him.

The segment starts with Moore's intrusion into Heston's home. That's where the effrontery began. Moore attempted to contrast his own false humility with Heston's presumed colossal ego in the form gigantic posters. Actually, at that point all Heston had left were his memories, that and the phrase "2nd amendment," which Moore holds in contempt, and those memories are colossal, nearly as large as Moore's own imposing intrusive waddling bulk. It was at that point that I came to despise Moore and my opinion confirmed with his contrasting positively fawning interview of Marilyn Manson, one of the few individuals allowed to actually make sense in that film, if you discount the Canadian kids who cheerfully agree gun-related crimes don't occur in loveliest of all countries, Canada.

I had expected a documentary to lead to something and to get somewhere, to end up a little smarter at the end of it, but in that I would be disappointed. Moore is a putz, and that was the last I ever allowed of him.

No one has yet mentioned Touch of Evil? All right, I will. It was Heston's star power that let crazy old Welles make such a cool picture...and people make fun of Heston as a Mexican! Oy! For the great opening 4 minute tracking shot, (even commented on by Fred Ward in The Player) and the beginning of a great run for Janet Leigh, (Touch of Evil, Psycho, Manchurian Candidate) Chuck Heston can play a Mongol for all I care, if he gets the picture made... oh and a nice bit between former lovers Welles and Marlene Dietrich in Evil too!

I can't believe you've never seen an iconic film like Ben Hur. It's as if you'd announced that you've never seen Citizen Kane, and you have no interest in seeing it.

I'd actually put Ben Hur above Citizen Kane -- and as you can guess from my screen name, I'm no Christian, so this opinion isn't based on my religious fervor.

And for the record: Michael Moore is a big, dumb, fat, lazy idiot from Michigan, who the left have embraced as a "documentarian" because they agree with the message of his propaganda.

What he did to Heston in his piece-of-filth "Bowling for Columbine" was sickening: He cut and spliced different sentences together to modify speeches given by Heston; he altered the order of events to make the NRA appear callous or tone-deaf; he goes so far as to splice together sentences from entirely different speeches. A careful viewer will note that Heston occasionally changes shirt-and-tie mid-speech.

A mention of this spittle-spraying pussbag shouldn't appear a blog post noting the death of Charlton Heston.

Heston's acting style was very much of an era and one I can't stand watching. (Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster and John Wayne all had the same, over-the-top, scene chewing style. It's wasn't as much acting as blustering.)

"Heston's acting style was very much of an era and one I can't stand watching. (Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster and John Wayne all had the same, over-the-top, scene chewing style. It's wasn't as much acting as blustering.)"

Yeah, those were the Clinton years. Are we heading into more Clinton years?

Who will be our president-in-exile?

Not Sen. McCain--he's always been about working with the opposition. We need someone more divisive.

It won't be Mike Huckabee. He will be too willing to work with the Dem president to get big government/big conservative programs passed.

Tom Selleck (also with the NRA) probably lacks the gravitas to fill the role.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is too moderate.

Mitt Romney is too Mormon.

Fred Thompson is too lazy and too genial. I expect he will make a few more YouTube web statements during the election campaign (in support of Sen. McCain, whenever the moment is right), but he's just not the right person to wage a scorched earth Hillary-hating shadow government.

Of course, just like with Bush Derangement Syndrome, (Bill) Clinton Derangement Syndrome struck otherwise normal, reasonable, rational people. So who knows how many of these nice guys will go off the deep end hating Hillary Clinton if she gets to be president? Maybe one of them can step up, and fill the role of divisive hate-monger who can't stand the president. Or maybe a new face will emerge from the Senate to embody hatred of Clinton or Obama.

Of course Moore DOESN'T show Heston the level of respect he deserves. You left out one part of Moore's video and one important fact:

Fact: Heston went to Flint Mich 6 months after the shooting and the Flint rally was to "get out the vote" not rally for 'gun rights'. So if Chuck seems puzzled when Moore asks him to apologize - thats why.

Left out Moore Video: After Heston walks away, Moore follows him, holds up a picture of the dead girl, and asks him if wants to apologize. Of course, Heston just keeps on walking. Why? Because he an 78 year old man whose hard of hearing and probably never heard Moore's question!

I'm really sad that on Heston's death you even brought a money grubbing parasite like Moore onto your website and gave him credibility.

"Left out Moore Video: After Heston walks away, Moore follows him, holds up a picture of the dead girl, and asks him if wants to apologize. Of course, Heston just keeps on walking. Why? Because he an 78 year old man whose hard of hearing and probably never heard Moore's question!"

Oh, yes, I remember that part now. He wouldn't leave nicely when asked. The clip I have shows Moore winning over his confidence before that. I was surprised at how inoffensive the clip was compared to my memory of the movie. Thanks.

And, by the way, I though Heston was pretty articulate and rational in that clip (except when he couldn't explain why he was talking about different ethnicities, which made him look terrible).

Ann Althouse: And, by the way, I though Heston was pretty articulate and rational in that clip (except when he couldn't explain why he was talking about different ethnicities, which made him look terrible).

People of a certain ethnicity, which constitutes less than 13% of the population, are responsible for committing about half of all violent crime.

Ask a rich old NRA-supporting white guy, on camera, why our murder rate is twice that of most European countries, and he may elude to ethnicity having something to do with it, but he won't be specific, lest he be branded a racist hater for pointing out the purple elephant in the room.

So I don't believe Charlton Heston is remembered chiefly for his monumental, jut-jawed portrayals of Moses, Ben-Hur and Michelangelo. I think most people younger than 60 remember him chiefly for "Planet of the Apes."

I'm 52, and I consider Heston's "Planet of the Apes" role to be an anomaly in his career (not that it was bad, just not representative).